Immediate Family

Synopsis

Immediate Family. Photographs by Sally Mann; Afterword by Reynolds Price. In these masterful photographs of Mann's three children, the truths this exceptional artist reveals transcher specific family and border on universal epic myth. 65 blackandwhite duotone photographs, 11 X 9 1/2, 78 pages. paperback;

"Mann's subjects are her small children ( a boy, a girl, and a new baby), often shot when they're sick or hurt or just naked. Nosebleeds, cuts, hives, chicken poX, swollen eyes, vomitingthe usual trials of childhoodcan be alarmingly beautiful, thrillingly sensual moments in Mann's portrait album. Her ambivalence about motherhoodher delight and despairpushes Mann to delve deeper into the steaming mess of family life than most of us are willing to go. What she comes up with is astonishing."

Vince Aletti, The Village Voice

"The photographs are beautiful and strange, like a dream of childhood in the summer. They are not your usual pictures of the children to sto the grandparents; they are pictures to sto the Museum of Modern Art."

Janet Malcolm, The New York Review of Books

"Immediate Family, which was published in 1990, must be counted as one of the great photograph books of our time. It is a singularly powerful evocation of childhood from within and without, tender and vertiginous and scary, employing a large photographic vocabulary to render precise ambiguities. Mann [constructs] a style that is much more farranging than the average contemporary photographer would permit him or herself, and yet identifiable and cohesive."

Luc Sante, The New Republic

Terror, self-discovery, doubt, vulnerability, pain, and joy all clash and converge in Mann's powerful photographs. Sally Mann's widely acclaimed Immediate Family, which explores childhood with unparalleled emotional depth, is now available in paperback for the first time.